I think it boils down to the fact that her ideas are both interesting and original, but the interesting ideas aren’t original, and the original ideas aren’t interesting while there are plenty of writers whose ideas are both simultaneously. Barbara Cartland has sold three quarters of a billion copies of her books and is neglected in schools for similar reasons.
Actually, they did teach Anthem in my daughter’s high school.
We don’t study philosophy in school. Were we to (and when I taught a non-fiction English class, I tried), I would think it’d be self evident that people like Plato, Descartes, Hume, Kant, maybe Nietzsche and Sartre would absolutely have to be covered, and really, that’s more than you could possibly cover in a course.
So I guess my observation for the OP is this: It’s not a matter of whether or not something is worth studying in some absolute sense. It’s a matter of extremely limited time. Right now, the curriculum doesn’t make much room for Plato, and Descartes, Hume, and Kant are rarely, if ever, mentioned. In the face of that, you really think the hole in philosophical education is that we aren’t teaching RAND? What did Rand innovate or offer that is more fundamental, more essential to the development of the modern Intellectual tradition than those dudes?
I read Atlas Shrugged in high school. But my Senior Lit class was free choice reading from a reading list of two hundred books, write a book report, be graded off some formula of number of pages + book report quality. Which, frankly, was not a good way for a sixteen year old to read Atlas Shrugged (but a great way for someone who consumed pages like M&Ms to get an easy A in English).
But as a novel, there are TONS of novels out there that are better written and more classic. Better writers. Our kids get a very limited time in school, in that time they will read a limited number of books. What do they pass on to get Ayn Rand - Romeo and Juliet? Pride and Prejudice? Great Gatsby? Old Man and the Sea? Grapes of Wrath? Jude the Obscure? Main Street? Beloved? To Kill a Mockingbird? Our Town? Midnight’s Children? Lord of the Rings? Heart of Darkness? 1984? Age of Innocence? Room with a View? - and about 200 more books that they won’t manage to fit in.
(I picked up Main Street from a Little Free Library recently - its SO WELL written.)
As Philosophy, I didn’t get Philosophy in high school and in college it was elective.
I rather wish she were compulsory study in high school, so that we’d be spared those who discover her for themselves as undergrads (the age nexus of reasoning and self-absorption) as if she were some magic, forbidden elixir.
I didn’t say it was. I said that many people find it hateful, which is a fact. Many people (I happen to be one, but that is neither here nor there) think Rand’s writing are pernicious and harmful, have already done much harm to human society, and would inevitably do very much more harm if more widely put into practice. Others, of course, think the opposite. That if they were put into practice they would do much good.
Do you think Marxist ideology should be taught in schools? Exactly the same things can be said about Marxism.
I think the reason is simple and it’s not due to “haters.”
While her books have some degree of popularity, they are not good literature nor good philosophy.
There are other works that might be comparable in terms of social influence but high school is usually not the place where popular but otherwise mediocre works are studied.
In my schools, as others have mentioned, we didn’t get any Philosophy class at all, which is where she might arguably fit best. Everything we read in English was better written, along with hundreds of other books we didn’t include for lack of time.
Besides, teachers have to spend a lot of time with students. When people discover Rand, they become really really insufferable to be around for a while. Teachers don’t want to subject themselves to that sort of hostile work environment.
I’m not sure if the previous paragraph is a joke or not.
The same reason they don’t teach Rush in music class: because having a small but hardcore following does not equal academic significance. I’d much rather have learned about Rush than Verdi, though.
You pound “sharing is good” into their heads all through grade school, it would be kind of sharp 360 to suddenly go Ayn Rand on them in high school. Turning Mr Roger’s neighborhood into the Hunger Games overnight sounds like a recipe for Columbine.
Wouldn’t that be a sharp 180? 
I think it’s a valid question, because at the very least, Ayn Rand sparks debate. It would seem a good way to get students to engage one another in lively discussion.
Facile is not the same as lively, and lively discussion is not an end in itself. I can get a lively discussion going over all sorts of things. It is a necessary, but not sufficient, quality.
Indeed.
“Here is a book kids, it is long, it is badly written, following it will cause you to live wrong. But making you read this pain now will save a few of you loads of trouble in the next few years.”
neither are sharp.
Bokononism should be taught first, it’s better thought out.
lots of debate can happen without suffering through suffering through her ideas and writing.
FWIW, I learned absolutely nothing about libertarians, libertarianism, libertarian thinkers (including Ayn Rand, but there’s also Rothbard, Bastiat, Mises, etc.) in [del]public[/del] government schools.
When you think about it, it stands to reason: one principle of libertarianism is the belief that the State should not be involved in education. When the State is educating you, it’s unlikely that they’re going to advance such an idea.
Best insult ever. 
But not really fair. During his pulp years, Hubbard was a much better writer.